Donya Fortress is the second new map to be shown off from the Close Quarters downloadable content pack for Battlefield 3 and is a small, vertical focused level designed for confined, frantic gameplay. Like Ziba Tower, you ca...

Today is going to be very special for Mash Tactics. King Foom is firing off in Battlefield 3 on Xbox 360 with the one and only, Jon Bloodspray. Bloodspray is an OG in the Dtoid forums, a verified "Legendary Dtoider", and a ne...

[Update: We're live RIGHT NOW! Come join us!]
That's right! Tomorrow at 8 PM Eastern, Destructoid will be hosting its first ever Community Playdate on Xbox LIVE! Four of the most talented soldiers from the Dtoid Community wil...

Tonight's the night! Starting at 8 PM Eastern, Destructoid will be hosting its first ever Community Playdate on Xbox LIVE! You've been reading about it for decades now, so I won't bore you with all the details yet again. Just...

Mar 13 //
Steven Hansen
Battlefield 3: Close Quarters DLC Pack (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC [Previewed]) Developer: DICE Publisher: Electronic Arts Release: June, 2012 The map I played is called Ziba Tower, a ridiculously swanky rooftop level suite of some sort. There’s a bar, a pool, and a wonderful view, and, I suppose, a lot of heavily armed men running about. Several times I found myself just gazing off into the distance, hoping I wouldn’t get shot in the back, because there seems to be a veritable metropolis below. You can even see cars, albeit not in great detail, driving in traffic on the streets below. And this is just the tertiary, background environment. The map is pretty. Ziba Tower is the embodiment sleek modern design, with its ambient lighting and lavishly cool blues and whites abound, while the brazen reds of bar stools adorning the map’s highest point pop starkly in contrast. It’s a lovely reprieve from the color brown. It also drove me wild, as it let my imagination get a clearer picture of just how amazing a potential Mirror’s Edge 2 could look running in the Frostbite 2 engine. Seriously, that’s a thing that needs to happen.
Speaking to how amazing the tech was, I was in awe with the level of destruction the map afforded. The aforementioned red bar stools leaked bronze foam when peppered with bullets while the bulbs of elaborate, ornate light fixtures could be satisfyingly shot out one by one. Glass walls shatter, yielding to gun-toting players taking the quick route onto patios, and rebar is exposed, protruding further and further out of demolished concrete. I constantly found myself pulling out my pistol just to shoot something and see how it would react to being shot, and I was rather delighted each time. Watching the transformation of this luxurious, extravagantly decorated architectural marvel to a tattered, bullet ridden, blood stained killing ground left me curiously bemused each round. The juxtaposition was deliciously droll. The matches I played generally hovered around eight combatants on eight combatants, which is more in line with what I want out of competitive multiplayer, as impressed as I was by games earlier in this generation that crammed a ridiculous amount of players into one game. The interactions were always more personal and the action more taut, with a chance encounter potentially waiting around every corner. The map never felt overbearingly suffocating or overly clustered, but I always felt like I had to be on my toes and that each firefight organically led into the next. Ultimately it’s Battlefield 3 on a new map (and with ten new guns), but that’s strangely enough to distinguish it from the game’s other efforts. Anyone who doesn’t feel the close quarter combat is their scene will be happy to know DICE is working on two more DLC packs to be released before the end of the year, with the next one focusing on vehicular play and some of the largest maps DICE has ever done. As for me, I would love to stay in a rooftop suite in Ziba Tower because it was one classy joint, and I wouldn’t mind playing Battlefield 3 with people on this map. Even if I’m still much more interested in how its design aesthetic might translate to Mirror’s Edge 2.

I’ve played about 20 minutes of Battlefield 3. I was with some friends and they handed me the controller during a multiplayer match. We were playing on a TV from the early 90’s that would occasionally, randomly,...

[Update: Some new info has been added to each expansion pack, plus we've added a new image.]
Last night, DICE revealed three new upcoming downloadable content packs coming to Battlefield 3. The first of the new packs is calle...

Remember the guy who performed that amazing rocket launcher kill after diving out of his jet? Well he's back with another amazing -- and lucky -- kill after diving out of his jet yet again. I literally screamed out loud "F*CK YOU!" from disbelief and anger at Stungravy's skills.
Tops everything I've seen in BF3 [Reddit]

Good news for Battlefield 3 players; DICE has released the first in what looks to be a month-long series of updates. So far, update 1.03 has fixed voice chat issues that PS3 players have been dealing with since launch. W...

Electronic Arts has filed a preemptive lawsuit against aircraft manufacturer Textron, hoping to invoke First Amendment laws and justify the use of real-life helicopters in Battlefield 3.
Three helicopters appear in the ...

Hey guys! Here's our last regular episode of The Destructoid Show of 2011! We're still gonna have episodes going up next week, but this is the last one that's our usual news-related journalism-program TV format.
Today's topi...

Dec 17 //
Allistair PinsofBattlefield 3: Back to Karkand (PC [reviewed], PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)Developer: DICEPublisher: Electronic ArtsReleased: December 6, 2011MSRP: $14.99 / 1200 Microsoft PointsRig: Intel i5-2500k @3.30 GHz, 8GB of RAM, GeForce GTX 560 GPU (SLI)Assuming you didn't receive the pack for free with your Battlefield 3 Limited Edition purchase, B2K requires an investment on your part. So, you probably want to know if it’s worth it. Well, that depends on a couple things.I love Battlefield. I loved Battlefield 3. In fact, it’s my fourth favorite game of the year. Yet, I haven’t loaded the game up in a month because things are crazy between school and new releases. From this perspective, B2K offers a welcome reason to jump back into the game. Wake Island and Strike at Karkand are two of the best maps in the series and you won’t be let down with these reimaginings.
Wake Island remains the perfect Battlefield map. The island’s slopes and hills provide vantage points for snipers, areas for ground troops to sneak, and space for tanks to roam. Every match on the map can be tackled in a new way, unlike some of the disappointing corridor crawls that came with Battlefield 3. For all the talk EA made about improved destruction in BF3, it felt like a major step back from Bad Company 2’s destructible multiplayer maps. The maps in the B2K expansion address this issue and give players lots of trees to tear down and bunkers to explode. Strike at Karkand is a much better close quarters map than most of what Battlefield 3 had to offer, so it’s nice to revisit it in this engine. It’s a much more versatile map that gives players lots of vertical advantages along with hiding areas. Do you take to a rooftop and fire down on a capture point or do you sneak through the alleyways and flank? The map is further improved with detailed buildings. However, I came across a pretty nasty glitch that some players were exploiting. I guess that’s par for the course, isn’t it?
Gulf of Omen feels like a weaker Wake Island. Likewise, Sharqi Peninsula feels like a weaker Strike at Karkand. Both maps are good and keep a balance between large and small scale battles in the expansion, but I’d prefer to see some Bad Company 2 favorites in their place -- perhaps, EA just doesn’t want us to realize how similar these two games really are. Visually-speaking, B2K is about what you expect. It strips the old maps of their color -- remember when games didn’t look like dogshit? -- and fills them full of tress, buildings, and skyscrapers. Some of these buildings are stunning in their structure and height. As a result, these maps feel a bit smaller than they were in Battlefield 2.
Part of this has to do with the fact that they have so much more detail -- no longer are you looking across a long plain of nothing. Another factor is that draw distance is much improved, these days. Remember the nasty fog most players had to experience in order to run BF2? I give EA the benefit of the doubt that the maps are close to the size of their originals. Even if they aren’t, they feel well tuned for Battlefield 3’s pacing.Along with four new maps, B2K offers a new multiplayer mode, three new vehicles, and ten new weapons. Well, new to BF3 at least; like the maps, most of this content is taken and updated from BF2.
Conquest Assault is a pretty basic modification of Conquest. The only difference is that one team starts with all the captures points and the other starts with a home base and extra tickets. It certainly makes the beginning of a match more exciting/stressful, but it’s all the same by the match’s end. This mode is only playable on Wake Island and Strike at Karkand.The vehicles are also slight variations of ones you’ve already controlled in BF3. You get one new tank, jet, and buggy. I didn’t even notice they were new additions until somebody told me, which should tell you everything. It’s a nice addition, nevertheless. The same is true of the weapons that you have to unlock by completing assignments (for example, reviving ten comrades). The glorious PP-19 returns which makes me happy.
There is nothing about B2K that screams must buy. As a whole, this pack fails to give me nostalgia for BF2 which seems like its main purpose. BF3 looks and plays too different to do that, unfortunately. However, Wake Island and Strike at Karkand are fantastic maps for both veterans and newbies. If you want an excuse to jump back into BF3 or you want to play Wake Island again, you should pick up this expansion. You’ll have fun and you’ll give that 2.7 GB of data a purpose to exist on your hard drive.

You may not be aware of it but EA just took a 2.7 GB dump on your hard drive. Within the latest patch for Battlefield 3 lies its first expansion Back to Karkand (B2K, brah!) Far less ambitious than the Vietnam expansions of the series’ past, B2K is an effort at mixing some old maps (all taken from Battlefield 2) with some new tech and ideas.

Google has released its 11th annual Zeitgeist lists of the most popular and fastest rising search terms. They're a lot of fun to look through, and some of the results are pretty surprising. You're going to sh*t when you ...

Yeah, going to be really hard to top this. There's an extended version showing more of the battle so you know it's not faked. Also, that's some really damn great piloting skills. Bravo, RendeZook.
Video game moment of the year nominee [Reddit]

Gamers who wanted to patch Battlefield 3 using standalone files are in for a disappointment, with EA confirming that Origin will be the only way to update DICE's shooter.
EA recently served a sizable 3.6GB patch fo...

Hey gang! It's Monday again, so here's The Destructoid Show. (Seriously, I have completely run out of ways to introduce episodes.)
Today, we talk about the week's releases, EA getting sued for being jerks again (serious...

A lot of Battlefield fans wet their pants at the news of the "Back to Karkand" DLC pack for BF3 which includes a selection of maps, vehicles and weapons from Battlefield 2. This newest trailer for the pack focuses entir...

EA has released the trailer for the Battlefield 3 Back to Karkand expansion pack, and it's looking pretty explosive. The expansion's going to feature 4 new maps along with new weapons and vehicles. Classic Conque...

Only a week after its launch, EA's internal estimates say that Battlefield 3 has sold over 5 million units worldwide, becoming the fastest selling game in EA's history. EA's Executive Vice President, ...

[Talking to Women about Videogames is a series where Jonathan Holmes talks to different people who are women about the biggest videogame news of the week for some reason.]
Some people had strong feelings about J...

Electronic Arts has admitted that a number of consumers who bought Battlefield 3 on the Xbox 360 are unable to play the game online because the included online pass does not work. This news comes on top of a problematic launc...

Hello, my special lil' people! It's Wednesday, and that means another Destructoid Show episode. Because we always record on Wednesdays. Duh.
Today, Tara runs down the bullet points of Jim's Battlefield 3 (get it? Becaus...

In a recent interview with PC Gamer, Battlefield 3 executive producer Patrick Bach said that “Our biggest benefit for the console has been that we’re leading on PC. It has forced us to push the limited techno...

[Update: Contest over! Winners are Jack8274, Kryptinite, Katherine Leigh McHugh, PirateGuy, Lekku, tangyrobot, Duuuude, and Aequitas!]
The big new release this week is Battlefield 3 and we have eight codes for the game to giv...

I love the holiday season, but I'll be damned if there isn't something every year that I want to buy myself, but can't because it could be a gift that someone already bought me. As it's already late October, we're getting nea...

Oct 25 //
Alex Bout
Battlefield 3 uses the Frostbite 2 graphics engine (Battlefield 2: Bad Company used Frostbite 1.5), which offers pretty noticeable advances in graphics quality. Please note that Battlefield 3 does require that DirectX 11 is installed on your computer, and won’t run without it. While it will run on DX10, there will be a significant difference in graphics rendering speed, as I will go on to talk about later. My suggestion: run it on DX11. If you can’t, go buy a card that can.
The Frostbite 2 engine is essentially broken up into five parts: objects, lighting, effects, terrain, and post-processing. To kick it off, Johan starts off with the object parts, which includes well ... everything. Each level has over 10,000 objects in it, which requires efficient and scalable handling as well as the ability to render the simulations in parallel with each other to take advantage of multi-core PCs. Mesh and texture streaming is something new to the Battlefield stage, which allows for more variation, better quality, reduced memory requirements, and shorter loading times.
Johan then goes on to talk about the improved lighting engine in Battlefield 3, and how it has drastically improved from previous games. Out of the five engine components I mentioned earlier, I feel that the increased lighting quality plays the largest quality boost in the gameplay. Whether it’s the indoor lighting from spotlights, fires, or lens flares or outdoor with the sun; both environments are extremely well done and will hopefully not only make Battlefield 3 shine (no pun intended), but also pave the road to future games as well.
DICE took the less-beaten path when it comes to how shading is handled. Instead of using forward rendering like the majority of games in circulation now, DICE decided to use deferred shading (Killzone uses deferred shading as well). While the entire process is completely different, it pretty much allows more flexibility with how the designers can handle the light sources (making them destructible, having hundreds of them, or just one giant one). While it does use quite a bit of memory, like 160MB of memory (keep in mind most GPUs these days have 1000MB of memory), the the team has alleviated this by using the fun tools in DX11.
Until Johan broke down the light sources, it didn’t occur to me how much detail comes from the light sources, and I found this particularly interesting, as even indirect light made a huge difference in graphics quality.
While effects are a major in all games, they play a particularly strong role in all the Battlefield games because of the explosions and such. Most of the effects consist of thousands of both big and small particles that fit and interact with the environment, which consists of playing around with the lighting angles. In previous games, you wouldn’t see shadows for smoke rising from a burning tank. With the increased effect patterns however, you can actively see shadows from both the smoke and flying debris. The days are gone when you would see a uniformly colored cloud of dust, despite its surroundings. Now, you’ll see surroundings casting shadows or lighting up the effect particles mentioned earlier.
Moving onto terrains, the team faced a lot of challenges integrating huge terrains while at the same time having the same high quality the rest of the game has up close. Once again, those of you trying to run this on DX10 will be in for a disappointment. While DX10 may render the terrain on say 1,000 triangles, DX11 will render the surrounding terrain on 1,000,000 triangles allowing for an awesome increase in quality (especially noticeable in mountain areas).
What exactly is post-processing? It’s more or less the final effects that show up on your field of vision. For instance, it’s the blurry screen you get when you’re dying, the other blur that happens when you’re moving, or the screen glare you get when some annoying prick decides to shine that flashlight in your eyes (yeah, I hold grudges like that), and also plays a part in not being able to see things very well if there’s a big difference in light levels (for instance, looking out from the metro into the bright light. You can’t see very well, just like you wouldn’t be able to in real life).
One big thing Johan details on is the increase in ambient occlusion technologies. For low and medium settings on PC and for all console versions, they went with SSAO, which is a super cheap AO effect. It has no extra memory cost, and is very fast. For high and ultra settings however, they went with HBAO. While they had this technology in BF2, they have vastly improved it. You can see pretty clearly that it darkens parts, while keeps others bright as they should be, and adds even more detail to the picture.
To close up the fourth part of the video, Johan breaks down a construction of a scene from the ground up, quite literally. Starting from the terrain and slowly adding everything in, you can actively see how Battlefield 3 goes from looking kind of dull to a beautiful game.
At the final section of the video series, Johan takes a quick overview of what kind of system you’ll need to play Battlefield 3 on its various settings (taken directly from the video):
LOW = lowest possible
Similar visuals to consoles, lots of stuff disabled
Still contains the essential visuals to not be unfair to multiplayer
Minimum: Geforce 8800 GT 512 MB RAM
MEDIUM = good performance
Most important visual features enabled
HIGH = what the game is designed for
All major features on except for MSAA (if you have DX11 card)
Recommended: Geforce 560 TI or better
ULTRA = highest possible
Intended primarily for multi-GPU machines for 60+ FPS
As you can see, ultra is not for the faint of heart, system-wise. Unless you have a pretty kick-ass machine, don't think you're going to be able to pull off ultra without a hitch.
For all you AMD fans out there, I suggest the Radeon HD 4770 for the minimum spec requirement and the Radeon HD 6950 for the high spec recommendation.
Battlefield 3 comes with a few nifty tools for those of us who benchmark and track our performance with various games, with an in-game console (accessible through pressing TAB), a built-in FPS meter (Render.DrawFPS 1 in the console), and a performance overlay that shows CPU/GPU graph over time (Render.PerfOverlayVisible 1 in the console). Personally, I really enjoy this feature, as it will make my life quite easier.
Wrapping it up, Johan briefly covers the 3D Vision capabilities of Battlefield 3. I don't know how many of you game in 3D, but it's pretty sweet, albeit a little tiring on the eyes. Sadly, while Battlefield 3 does not have 3D Vision support upon release, we expect EA to add 3D support in the upcoming patch. Also, check out NVIDIA'S latest GeForce 285.62 drivers here. These drivers are compatible with and support 3D Vision for Battlefield 3.

To help usher in Battlefield 3, NVIDIA has released some behind-the-scenes footage from GeForce LAN 6 detailing how DICE made the game the gorgeous masterpiece it is. The video series features rendering architect Johan A...

Guys... Battlefield 3 is right around the corner. Literally. In the game's launch trailer, we get a look at the game's campaign with Marine Sergeant "Black" defending America from a "sinister" Middle-Eastern power.
It'...

Today, we did our live show, as usual. You know, except Tara and our producer Zac are down at Blizzcon. Today I got left to my own devices with Anthony Carboni, host of Revision3's new show New Challenger, which I was o...

The fact that it's not already October 25 has sent me into a fit of rage. Battlefield 3's latest mutliplayer trailer has calmed me down a little, at least to the degree that exploding vehicles and warfare can calm a person. ...

Oct 16 //
David Rayfield
For any developer, the launch of a game is both exciting and stressful. But in the case of Battlefield 3, the pressure raises up several hundred notches. Not far from where we're sitting, a line stretches far back into the show floor filled with people from all walks of life. They're waiting to play a few minutes of the game at the EA booth and the line is three hours long.
The presence of so many people wanting to get their hands on their game, even for a moment, is something that is omnipresent for DICE.
Lars explains the current vibe at the studio, saying "There's a lot of nervousness going around. People saying 'Did you see that? Did you see what they said over there?' I think everyone is extremely jumpy. I wouldn't say it's fear but it's your baby and you just want it to go extremely well."
Daniel is also aware of the the whole gaming world's excitement for the title. "This is the absolute biggest project we have ever taken on. We've always wanted to make Battlefield 3 ever since Battlefield 2 released and we all feel some form of pressure in one way or another."
"The most important thing though," he continues, "is how we handle that pressure. We have to keep our heads in the game and keep working and working. Even though the game will be fantastic at launch, it will be even more fantastic when it's released because that's when the real job starts."
Last week, the beta ended for Battlefield 3 and received a lot of mixed reactions. Implementing any feedback from the beta into the final game has been a mixture of expectations and surprises for DICE. Lars is confident about both.
"You always need to look at what type of game you have. We can't release whatever we have just because we have a [launch] date. I think it's been extreme dedication and focus on the team to make sure we have a great game when the date comes. I would say we have exceeded my expectations in what we managed to accomplish with this game."
"It wasn't like when things surfaced in the beta we were caught by surprise and started fixing the main game. The main game was more or less done," explains Lars. "It was more validating what we knew. We just checked our lists of already implemented fixes and said 'Yeah, yeah we know about that one' or 'Oh yeah, that old one.' But then, there were things we found. The pace of scoring, that people were scoring so quick took us by surprise. A lot of good findings that will make it a better experience."
Despite a long history of dedicated fans, Battlefield 3 stands as DICE's most high-profile release to date. Pre-orders for the game have broken previous records set by Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and every time a further piece of information is released about the game, people sit up and take notice. Which brings new challenges; new players who have never touched a Battlefield before will be jumping into this one in record numbers.
Lars begins to talk about how that will be a relatively painless process. "Everything can ease you in from single-player and going into co-op with a friend and really getting the core of the gameplay. But then of course we have our matchmaking and a very gradual introduction of all of the gameplay and the unlock system. The easiest to get into would be Team Deathmatch and then find your way into the more advanced modes. I think there really is something there for everyone."
Unsurprisingly, Daniel agrees. "It really fits our Battlefield formula and the style of play we have which is easy to learn and hard to master. The hardcore players of course will adapt early because they're used to the jets, they're used to the tanks. Players that haven't played Battlefield before, it's very easy to step in."
As the interview progresses and the long, long line near us shuffles forward, I notice something I did not expect: enthusiasm.
Both Lars and Daniel have been working and traveling for far beyond what normal human beings should be capable of, so I expected at least a slight weariness in them. But it is the complete opposite. Both of them are beaming and eager to tell me about every inch of the game.
The main part of which, will be the multiplayer. Once it launches, hardcore players will rank up and unlock weapons quicker than most mortals. Post-launch, the game will continue to support and feed into such gameplay styles.
"What we've seen over our history of the big community we have it's that players stick to Battlefield even if the game is two years old," states Daniel. "We still have tournaments in Battlefield 2 and still a lot of players in Bad Company 2. In six months, I think people will have finally gotten the gist of what Battlefield 3 is. Because by then, they've unlocked a lot of stuff and been playing through the maps so may times that they know the sweet spots. So what we're going to see is the community coming together as one to play the maps the way they're supposed to be played."
The last word goes to Lars, who is confident of Battlefield 3's long-lasting endurance: "We have an operations team that has been working since before the beginning of the year with potential post-launch content and plans. If you know DICE from earlier titles, we keep going along the life cycle of a title. So six months from now, it's just the beginning of a long relationship."
The interview wraps up and we shake hands. As I leave, both men are eager to reach their next appointment and then finish for the day so they can return home. That said, the feeling of pride is almost tangible. Both Lars and Daniel are noticeably proud of the work they are doing.
In less than two weeks, maybe they can have a night off.

Battlefield 3 is on shelves in less than two weeks and he seems surprisingly relaxed. The same goes for his colleague. Both of them have been on the road for two straight weeks. First Moscow, then Sydney, and now here on the ...